Show me a open source mouse? Besides the mouse from Ploppy Co.
Are there many option for truly customizable mice? Without artificial limitations on what I can program a button to do.
I wish the mouse market was very well saturated with options such as what I’d hope to see from Framework!
If it was, I wouldn’t have had to spend time & effort doing a brain transplant on my mouse to overcome the artificial limitations on how buttons could be programed.
That makes sense, I thought they meant a whole new battery pack product, and I guess I just am not very informed on mice. I have never had any issues with mine and only ever really looked at ergonomics, number of buttons, and DPI. beyond that I just never needed anything I couldn’t find quickly. Privileged workflow I suppose
I’m currently using three Logitech mice where I’ve replaced the switches in them. And two of those I’ve scrubbed the rubber off spots where it’s started getting tacky.
I still have an old wired mx518, and they just don’t make 'em like that anymore. Whatever Logitech did with that higher DPI was great, and I want a new one. With more easily replaced switches. And none of that godawful planned obsolescence rubber.
Thx to the ultralight mouse trend a lot of models are going back to full plastic instead of partially rubberized which probably also helps in that regard.
Since I for some reason find the razer mamba shape quite comfortable but absolutely can’t stand their software I have been using a knock off mamba for a while (also replaced the switches with ones I liked better) and apart from scroll wheels breaking (which actually turned out to be available as replacement parts) they have been lasting me quite a while till the rubberized parts on the sides broke and those weren’t available.
Turns out the same knock off manufacturer also makes an ultralight version with a very similar shape but without the rubber bits, so I got one of those and after a few modifications I am quite happy with it (also I kinda understand the hype with ultralight now).
I’m using a logitech G502X Lightspeed at home. And I love the features, except the stupid software hub I used once for setup then disabled. I even feel ambigous about the rubberized side and wheel from a comfor perspective. I just really like comfortable bulky mice with many buttons and features.
But it has zero part availability. This was a fucking expensive toy, and once something breaks I can’t fix diy, it will be a fucking expensive piece of trash.
Meanwile the parts that most easily break or get lost, the buttons, the rubberized cover, the wheel. These would cost from pennies to dollars to sell. It just makes more money to screw the customer and sell only entire mice instead.
People rarely need a board or sensor replacement, and even switches are very durable nowadays (and these parts tend to be soldered together anyway). It’d be best if those could be also easily fixed, so I wrote my initial idea with full repairability in mind, but those are understandably expensive fixes. Most fixes would only require carrying spares of the tiny injection molded junk in the store.
I ran a 3d printed scroll wheel for a while till I found out they are somewhat standard parts. It was a bit more slippery than I’d like but it worked quite well.
You can actually find a bunch of 3rd party logitech replacement parts, have you looked if you can’t find anything?
If it didn’t involve sanding I’d probably be running some open source 3d printed mouse by now XD
I also 3D print my own repairs, but that’s a whole separate hobby, not something every end user can be expected to do, even with available CAD models. And having to model your own repair raises the bar so much, it’s usually not even cost effective to do.
Parts being 3D printable, or some parts being available from random 3rd parties doesn’t really count as part availability to me. Because the user can’t expect either quality or sustained supply from a random amazon or aliexpress store, who might not even be legally allowed to sell what they are selling.
For a product to be repairable, I’d only count if replacement parts could be sourced from reputable companies (preferably the manufacturer) with a reliable trust in them still being available in the future when the product breaks, not just when it is still under warranty and working flawlessly.
If I check, I can see that top covers with the integrated rubberized parts are available at a really friendly price right now from aliexpress, same for some buttons. All from random stores with <5 reviews and <50 sales. That’s no more reliable than browsing personal sales for faulty products being sold for parts.
And on a sidenote, yeah, if there was some open source 3D printed mouse with a bunch or extra buttons and wireless, I’d also consider switching, even with the sanding. Most of them are really simple though.
Mostly we agree, I just tend to separate reputable 3rd party replacement and “codenamed ephemeral aliexpress shop with 50 sales” into distinct categories. I will only know if the second one is a perfectly good illegitimaly sourced part or a failed copy after my product breaks and I try it for myself with zero consumer protection. But it’s still better than not even a chance to get a part at all.
That sounds like it’d be relatively easy to add to any existing options, asuming they are open source.
The closest mouse to my end goal would be the Ploopy, and that one requires a redesign from wired to wireless. Doesn’t sound impossible, but more experienced designers tried and failed for a few years now, so I definitely don’t see it as a trivial task.
Guess you may need to wait for zmk to finish the mouse support, zmk is pretty much wireless first. Personally more of a wired mouse guy but that’s just personal preference.
Maybe I just click a lot or have bad luck, but I’ve had switches fail at a higher rate than even batteries, automatic double-clicks and drags dropping early.
Since the frame.work mouse isn’t here yet, my usual mouse fixes at the moment:
remove rubber stuff from surface with sandpaper. works quick enough and looks quite good if you are a bit careful in which directions you move the sandpaper.
instead of actually changing mouse switches, i usually just open them up and bend the contacts together a bit. makes for very nice quiet and low resistance mouse clicks for CAD-work with 10-60 min. of work, depending on the mouse.
For the frame.work mouse, im still waiting for an ultralight vertical one with a free spinning mouse wheel like the mx master and with an at least optional cable. pretty sure thoses don’t exist on the market anywhere.
I am not gaming, just all business sort of work, the requisite social media, news, etc. I got a Bluetooth mouse shaped like my Logitech and like it. It cost $12 or so. And I can travel with it, not risking much at all if I lose or damage it.
Do you have a set of really good tweezers or something? I took apart an Omron switch one time and tried fiddling with the contacts and it was awful to get back together once that top piece was out of position.
My models were mostly simpler speedlink models, not sure if Omron switches are different. I took one apart once, that was a bit of work to put back together. Now I just remove the top cover of the switch and bend the contacts slightly without removing anything else.
P.S. short Youtube-tutorial below (not mine). It’s really quite easy.
Kinda like that, but, the flat metal top part went pinging across my desk and then I had to kind of hook the front, hold it in place against another very thin piece of metal, and awkwardly maneuver the back of this spring into its position without moving the mouse / switch relative. If I had two good tweezers and had taped the mouse down, it might not have been that bad.
@Fraoch thanks for creating the separate mouse discussion thread!
yes, simple as bending contacts is, it does take a bit of patience and a calm hand. get’s a lot easier after a bit of practice. Good tweezers would probably help, will try that next time.
Have to agree though, putting in the right switches might be the more professional way. I just like bending switches as a simple low-tech way without soldering and waiting for any orders to arrive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-iwyqosaKw this switch looks more like the ones I’ve seen in Logitech mice. (He gets to a good image of the internal parts around 1:40.) Taking them apart is not something I’d recommend.
Where he breaks the plastic clips holding the housing together, in my experience, it’s more common for those to catch on the top of the metal part of the switch.
